It's just a symptom of how dysfunctional the current funding & promotion practices are. For many years now these decisions have been based directly on measures

It's just a symptom of how dysfunctional the current funding & promotion practices are. For many years now these decisions have been based directly on measures more or less equivalent to "inbound links" to ones publications, to an extent that such measures have become a de-facto form of capital -- to be fostered and protected accordingly.